Starfire

by Dale Brown

  The week had started, along with the rain, with an introduction to Krav Maga. “Krav Maga was developed in Israel for the military,” James Ratel had begun last Monday afternoon. “It is not a discipline, like karate or judo; it is not a sport, and will never be in the Olympics or on television. Krav Maga has three basic objectives: neutralize the attack through the use of arm and hand locks and parries, being careful to protect yourself; go from defense to offense as quickly as possible; and quickly neutralize the attacker by manipulating joints and attacking vulnerable spots on the body, using any tools that might be handy. We are assuming you have broken or misplaced your cane, so now you are left with having to defend yourself without a weapon and probably against a very angry attacker.

  “Some teachers will tell their students that the amount of force needed to neutralize an attacker should be proportional to the force of the attack, which means, for example, you would use less force on an attacker that uses his fist than on an attacker with a bat or knife,” Ratel went on. “I do not believe in that. Your objective is to put the attacker down so you can escape. In training, you will do three blows to demonstrate you can do them, but on the street you continue to attack until your attacker goes down. Forget all the Bruce Lee movies you’ve ever seen: it’s not one parry, one blow, and then let the guy get up to go after you again. Once you’ve blocked or locked up the attacker, you keep attacking his soft vulnerable spots and joints until he goes down, and then you run like hell and get away from the situation as quickly as possible. Understand?”

  “Yes, Chief,” Brad said.

  Ratel motioned to a folder that was lying on the counter outside. “That is some homework for you,” he said. “We will train to attack soft spots on the body using numbers, going from head to foot. Learn the spots and the numbers. You will also learn about all of the two hundred and thirty joints on the human body, and specifically which way they articulate so you can attack them. Be prepared to demonstrate those to me by next Wednesday.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Very well. Kick off those shoes and socks, then on the mat.” Brad removed his sneakers and socks, bowed to the center of the blue mat, and stepped to the center, and Ratel followed. Brad was wearing his workout beol, now with a red and black belt, instead of the white, with first-level poom-rank markings on it, indicating that he had passed his first round of basic instruction.

  “We start with the basics, and in Krav Maga that is parries,” Ratel began. “Notice I didn’t say ‘block.’ A block suggests that you might absorb some of the energy an attacker is using against you, like two football linemen smashing into one another. We use the term ‘parry’ instead, which means you divert most or all of the energy of an attack in a safe direction.”

  “Just like the basic moves with the cane, sir?” Brad observed.

  “Exactly,” Ratel said. “The key to the initial parry in Krav Maga is anticipation, and that means awareness of your surroundings. If a would-be attacker approaching you has his right hand in his pocket, the weapon is probably in his right hand, so your mental plan of action is to prepare to defend against a right-handed attacker.” Ratel picked up a rubber knife from a shelf behind him and tossed it to Brad. “Try it.”

  Brad put his right hand with the knife behind him and approached Ratel, then swung his hand toward him. Ratel’s left hand snapped out, pushing the knife past his chest and half turning Brad’s body. “Foremost, the knife is not near your body, and if the attacker had another weapon in his left hand, he could not use it right now because I turned him away. Like the cane, you now see areas of the body that are exposed.” Ratel made punching motions at Brad’s torso and head. “Or, I can catch the right arm with my right arm and lock it, with the knife safely away from me, and with the arm in a lock, I control the attacker.” Ratel grabbed Brad’s right arm from underneath, put his hand on Brad’s tricep, and pushed. Even with a slight bit of pressure, it felt as if the arm were going to snap in two, and Brad could go nowhere but toward the ground.

  That was the first day’s training, and after finishing the third, Brad was starting to wonder if he would ever be able to learn any of those Krav Maga techniques, let alone use them. But he reminded himself that he’d thought the same thing about Cane-Ja, and he figured he was getting pretty good at that. He exited the dojang, put up the hood of his green-and-gold Cal Poly Mustangs windbreaker, and started running east down Tank Farm Road toward Broad Street and the bus stop. Although not quite sunset, it was drizzly, cool, and getting dark quickly, and he wanted to be off this unlit road, on the main drag, and on the bus as soon as possible.

  He was halfway to Broad Street, on the darkest part of the road, when a car approached, heading west. Brad left the pavement and stepped onto the uneven gravel “warning track” strip, but kept on running. The car shifted left a little bit and straddled the center line, and it looked as if it was going to pass by him with plenty of room to spare . . .

  . . . when suddenly it swerved farther left, then began to skid to the right on the slick road, the car now perpendicular to the road, brakes and tires squealing—and heading right for Brad! He had almost no time to react to the sudden move. The car had slowed down quite a bit, but when it hit, it felt ten times worse than any blow he had ever received in high-school football.

  “Oh, jeez, sorry about that, Mr. Bradley McLanahan,” a man said a few moments later through the haze in Brad’s consciousness. Brad was on his back on the side of the road, dazed and confused, his right hip and arm hurting like hell. Then, in Russian, the man said, “Izvinite. Excuse me. Wet road, I may have been going a little too fast, a coyote ran out in front of me, and I could hardly see you in the drizzle, blah, blah, blah. At least that is the story I will give the sheriff’s deputies, if they find me.”

  “I . . . I think I’m all right,” Brad said, gasping for air.

  “V samom dele? Really? Well, my friend, we can fix that.” And suddenly the man pulled a black plastic garden cleanup bag from a pocket, pressed it against Brad’s face, and pushed. Brad couldn’t breathe anyway with the wind knocked out of him, but panic rose up from his chest in terrifying waves. He tried to push the attacker away, but he couldn’t make any part of his body work properly.

  “Prosto rasslab’tes’. Just relax, my young friend,” the man said, mixing English and Russian as if he were an expatriate or foreign cousin from the old country telling a bedtime story. “It will be over before you know it.”

  Brad had no power at all to move the plastic away from his face, and he was considering surrendering to the roaring in his ears and the fiery pain in his chest . . . but somehow he remembered what he needed to do, and instead of fighting the hands holding the plastic on his face or trying to find his cane, he reached down and pressed the button on the device around his neck.

  The attacker saw what he did, and for a moment he released the pressure on Brad’s face, found the device, snapped it off Brad’s neck, and threw it away. Brad gasped in a lungful of air. “Nice try, mudak,” the attacker said. He pressed the plastic over Brad’s face before Brad could take three deep breaths. “You’ll be dead long before your medic-alert nurses arrive.”

  Brad couldn’t see it, but moments later a set of headlights approached. “Derzhite ikh podal’she,” the man said over his shoulder in Russian to a second assailant, whom Brad had never seen. “Keep them away. Have them call 911 or something, but keep them away. Tell them I am doing CPR.”

  “Ya budu derzhat’ ikh podal’she, tovarisch,” the assistant acknowledged. “I will keep them away, sir.”

  The first assailant had to stop pressing the plastic bag over Brad’s mouth and nose until the newcomers left, but he bent over Brad as if he were doing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but covering his mouth so Brad couldn’t cry out. A few moments later he heard, “Eto vo vsem. It is all over.”

  “Takoy zhe. Same here,” the first assailant said . . . and then his vision exploded in a sea of stars and blackness as the crook of the cane
crashed against his left temple, rendering him instantly unconscious.

  “Jesus, Dexter, you’re as blue as a fucking Smurf,” James Ratel said, shining a small flashlight at Brad’s face. He pulled Brad to his feet and put him in the front seat of his Ford pickup truck. He then loaded the two Russian hit men into the cargo bed of the pickup and drove back down Tank Farm Road to the dojang. He put plastic handcuffs on the wrists, ankles, and mouths of the two Russians, and sent a text message on his phone. By then, Brad was starting to come around in the passenger seat of the pickup. “Dexter!” Ratel shouted. “Are you okay?”

  “Wh-what . . . ?” Brad murmured.

  “McLanahan . . . Brad, Brad McLanahan, answer me,” Ratel shouted. “Wake up. Are you all right?”

  “I . . . what . . . what the hell happened . . . ?”

  “I need you to wake the hell up, McLanahan, right now,” Ratel shouted. “We could be under attack at any moment, and I can’t defend you if you’re not awake and able to defend yourself. Wake the fuck up, right now. Acknowledge my order, airman, immediately.”

  It took a few long moments, but finally Brad shook his head clear and was able to say, “Chief? Y-yes, I’m awake . . . I’m . . . I’m good, Chief. Wh-what should I do? What’s happening?”

  “Listen to me,” Ratel said. “We don’t have a lot of time. I anticipate that we will be attacked by the backup strike team any second. We are completely alone and in extreme danger. I need you alert and responsive. Are you hearing what I’m saying, McLanahan?”

  “Y-yes, Chief,” Brad heard himself say. He still wasn’t sure where he was or what was going on, but at least he was able to respond to Chief Ratel. “Tell me what to do.”

  “Go inside and grab some mats and weights to cover these guys up,” Ratel said. They both went inside. Brad found workout mats and barbell weights. Ratel unlocked an ordinary-looking trophy display case in the front of the dojang; a hidden drawer underneath the case concealed a number of handguns, shotguns, and knives.

  “I covered them up, Chief,” Brad said.

  Ratel racked a shell into a shotgun’s chamber and handed it to Brad, then did the same with two pistols. “Stick the pistols in your waistband.” He armed himself with two pistols, an AR-15 rifle, and several ammunition magazines. “We’re going to try to make it to the hangar in Paso Robles—it’s easier to defend.”

  “Shouldn’t we call the police?”

  “I’d like to avoid doing that, but we might not have any choice,” Ratel said. “Let’s go.”

  They drove onto Highway 101 northbound. Darkness had fallen, and the rain continued to fall, greatly reducing visibility. They were on the highway for less than five minutes when Ratel said, “We’re being tailed. One car, staying with us about a hundred yards back.”

  “What do we do?”

  Ratel said nothing. At the Santa Margarita exit a few miles later, he left the freeway, and at the end of the off-ramp they armed themselves and waited. No car exited behind them. “Maybe they weren’t tailing us,” Brad said.

  “More likely they have a GPS tracking device somewhere on my pickup so they don’t have to follow very closely—there was no time for me to check,” Ratel said. “They probably have more than one pursuit team. The first team will drive on, then pull off somewhere, and the second pursuit team takes over. We’ll go the back way to the airport.”

  They stayed on county roads for another hour until they finally reached Paso Robles Airport. Once inside the security gate, they drove toward the team’s hangar, but stopped about a quarter mile away. “There’s still too much activity at the airport to drag those guys inside,” Ratel said, laying the AR-15 rifle across his lap. “We’ll wait until it gets quieter.” They waited, on hair-trigger alert for anyone approaching them. About an hour later a small twin-engine airplane taxied close by, and the pilot parked a few hangars away. It took the pilot almost an hour to get his own car out of the hangar, park the plane inside, then gather his belongings and drive away, and the airport was quiet once again.

  Thirty minutes later, after no more signs of activity, finally Ratel could wait no longer. He drove to the hangar, and he and Brad dragged the assailants inside. Ratel then drove the pickup about a quarter mile away and parked it, then jogged back to the hangar.

  “Made it,” Ratel said, wiping rain off his head and his AR-15. “The backup teams will track down the pickup, and then track us to here. Then they’ll probably wait a few hours before they attack.”

  “How will they track us down to here?”

  “I can think of a dozen ways,” Ratel said. “If they’re any good, they’ll be here. I just hope help arrives before that.”

  Less than an hour later, amid the steady rain and an occasional gust of wind, they heard the sound of metal scraping on metal outside the main entrance door. “Follow me,” Ratel whispered, and he and Brad retreated to the hangar. There was a small business jet inside, its black paint job signifying it belonged to Kevin Martindale’s Scion Aviation International outfit. Ratel found a large cabinet-sized toolbox on wheels alongside a hangar wall, pushed it away from the wall, and they both got behind it. “Okay, your job is to watch that walk-through door over there,” Ratel said, pointing to the large aircraft hangar door. “I’ll be watching the door to the front office. Single shots only. Make them count.”

  A few minutes later they heard another sound of forced metal, and a few minutes after that they heard more sounds of metal on metal coming from the walk-through hangar door, a signal that the door was being jimmied open. A moment later the door opened and Brad could see a man wearing night-vision goggles, crouching low, come through the opening, carrying a submachine gun. The bizjet was now concealing him. A second attacker stepped through the door, closed it, and stayed there to cover it. At the same time Ratel could see two more attackers come through the office door, also wearing night-vision goggles and carrying submachine guns.

  “Crap,” he whispered. “Four guys. We’ve run out of time.” He pulled out his cell phone, dialed 911, left it on, turned the volume all the way down, and slipped it under the toolbox. “Use the pistol. Get the guy by the door. The other guy will probably hide behind the jet’s right wheel.” Brad peeked out from behind the toolbox and aimed at the guy by the walk-through door, which was partially illuminated by a lighted emergency exit sign. Ratel took a deep breath, then whispered, “Now.”

  Brad and Ratel fired nearly simultaneously. Ratel’s shot found its mark, and one attacker went down. Brad had no idea where his shot went, but he knew he didn’t hit one thing except maybe a hangar wall. The guy by the door dashed along the hangar wall toward the conference room, crouching low. As Ratel had predicted, the other guy took cover behind the jet’s wheel . . . and then the hangar erupted with automatic-weapon fire, seemingly coming from all directions at once. Ratel and Brad ducked behind the toolbox.

  “Open fire when the shooting stops!” Ratel shouted. The toolbox was being raked with bullets, but it looked like the tools inside were absorbing the bullets. A moment later there was a momentary lull in the shooting, and Brad peeked over the toolbox, saw movement by the jet’s tire, and fired. The round hit the tire, which instantly exploded, sending a concussion shock wave into the attacker’s face. He screamed, clutching his face in agony. The bizjet looked like it was going to crash to the right, but the wheel hub barely kept it from completely tipping over.

  Now the gunfire was shifting directions—more bullets were hitting the side of the toolbox instead of the front. “Watch your sides!” Ratel shouted. “They’ll try to . . . ahhh! Shit!” Brad looked to see Ratel clutching his right hand, which looked as if it had been split wide open by a bullet. Blood spurted everywhere. “Take the rifle and hold them off!” Ratel shouted, clutching his injured hand, trying to stem the bleeding.

  Brad tried to peek around the toolbox, but the moment he moved, the bullets began to fly, and now he could feel them getting closer and closer, like a swarm of bats buzzing past his head. He tr
ied pointing the rifle around the toolbox and firing, but the rifle’s muzzle was jumping around uncontrollably. Ratel had wrapped a rag around his right hand and was firing a pistol with his left, but the muzzle wasn’t steady at all and he looked as if he was going to go unconscious at any moment. Brad heard boot steps and voices in Russian getting closer. This is it, he thought. The next shot he’d hear would be the last one ever, he was certain of it . . .

  SIX

  A lie never lives to be old.

  —SOPHOCLES

  PASO ROBLES, CALIFORNIA

  Suddenly there was a tremendous explosion at the back of the hangar. The air was instantly filled with dust and debris. Voices were shouting in Russian . . . and soon the shouting was replaced by screaming, and a moment later the screams fell silent as well.

  “All clear, Brad,” came an electronically synthesized voice. Brad looked up, and there behind the bizjet was a Cybernetic Infantry Device.

  “Dad?” he asked.

  “Are you all right?” Patrick McLanahan asked.

  “Chief Ratel,” Brad said, shouting over the ringing in his ears from all the gunfire in the enclosed hangar. “He’s hurt.” A moment later two men hurried over and carried Ratel out. Brad ran over to the robot. He saw where his father had burst through the doorway, taking out most of the wall around the door between the hangar and the front office. All six attackers, the four who had attacked the hangar and the two who attacked Brad on Tank Farm Road, had already been taken away.

  “Are you all right, Brad?” Patrick asked.

  “Yes. I can’t hear very well from all the gunfire, but otherwise I’m okay.”

  “Good. Let’s get out of here. The Highway Patrol and sheriffs are about five minutes out.” Patrick picked up his son and carried him across a large open field to a parking spot near the south end of the runway, where the black Sherpa cargo plane was waiting, its turboprop propellers turning at idle speed. Patrick put Brad down, crawled inside through the cargo ramp in the back, and sat down on the cargo deck, and Brad climbed aboard right after him. A crewmember steered Brad onto a cargo net seat, helped him buckle in, and gave him a headset. Within moments they were airborne.